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The punky QB of the '85 Bears
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00:00for SportsCentury. Jim McMahon was the easy rider of quarterbacks. He went out of his way to take
00:06the road less traveled and usually did so on his motorbike. The rebel was in him and so was the
00:13knack for winning. McMahon took equal pleasure in defying convention and blitzes. You could force
00:20him into white tie and tails, but he'd probably wear high tops with them.
00:30He loved to play to a camera. He loved to play to a crowd. He loved to play to the fans.
00:47And his image is what comes to mind first and foremost, not just what he was able to do
00:55on the field.
00:56He enjoyed making people swear, put them in situations where they were fully appalled
01:01and they don't know exactly what the next one was going to be. Jim busted up the monotony
01:05of a long NFL season because he's so unpredictable in his day-to-day antics, whether it be wearing
01:11funky sunglasses, shaving his head into a mohawk.
01:14He said, well, I want something different. I go, different? I go, how different? He goes,
01:19I want something that's really going to make people stand up and look.
01:22He was as zany as everyone portrayed him to be. Jim would always like to look at magazines
01:28that you wouldn't be able to buy unless you were 18 years or older.
01:31Dick has said we had to have collars on to travel on the plane. Here comes Priest McMahon
01:36getting on the plane that week with me, a minister's collar.
01:39Mac's sitting on the sideline eating a pizza. I look over for the signal and Mac's supposed
01:43to be signaling. He's got a chunk of pizza stuck in his mouth and he's signaling the plane.
01:49The owner of the Eagles would use our locker room to get dressed.
01:52And McMahon yells out, locker rooms for players only.
01:55And the owner turns around and says, sorry, Jim, I'll go get dressed in the coach's locker room.
02:02I was actually at an interview in Las Vegas and the reporter had a paper clip in his eyeglasses.
02:08And Jim thought it was a hidden mic. So he let the guy have both barrels,
02:12every obscenity you could think of. He said, then put that in your story.
02:15He would swear at me every day in his locker.
02:17One point I remember him turning around and blowing his nose on me.
02:20It was the first time I actually made eye contact with the guy.
02:23I'll tell you what I think. Whether you want to hear it or not, that's, you know, that's your problem.
02:29You know, people don't like to hear the truth a lot.
02:32And they don't like to hear people saying what they wish they could have said.
02:35They don't have the balls to do it.
02:38His curse also made it to one people who was, as obnoxious as he was, he was unrepentant.
02:45He knows he's a jerk and he doesn't care that you know he's a jerk and he's not going to say, whoops, I made a mistake.
02:50There's a lot of things that I did just for the hell of it.
02:53That's what I tried to show a lot of my teammates.
02:55It doesn't matter what you do during the week.
02:57It's what you do on game day.
03:00For 15 NFL seasons, the first seven with Chicago, Jim McMahon played quarterback with a linebacker's mentality.
03:08What diminished his game were injuries.
03:10What reduced his status among the league's old guard was a refusal to douse his fires of rebellion.
03:16During the 1985 playoffs, NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle reprimanded McMahon.
03:21They gave me a $5,000 fine for wearing my Adidas headband, which I had worn.
03:26Then he wore a headband that said Rozelle.
03:29And even Pete Rozelle had to laugh at that one.
03:31All year long.
03:32And they never said a word to me all year long.
03:35And it made no sense to me.
03:37So the following week they said, you know, you can't wear the headband, you're going to get a bigger fine.
03:41So Jim takes a blank headband and got his marker out and he's putting Rozelle down on the headband, which he wore for the NFC championship game.
03:50I didn't know that McMahon was going to follow the league edict or not.
03:57Sure enough, he goes out on the field, takes on his helmet, the camera zooms in, and it says Rozelle.
04:03When the Bears landed in New Orleans for Super Bowl XX, McMahon walked into the biggest stage of his career.
04:09But instead of basking in his own glory, the NFL's hottest extrovert found his tail.
04:15Rather than his whip, the active media attempt.
04:18I got hit in a bone in the NFC championship game and literally my ass swelled up to one side.
04:25It was huge.
04:26I mean, it was all black.
04:27I didn't know if I was going to be able to play.
04:29He made a camera in the helicopter flying over, so he rolled over on his back and pulled his pants down.
04:34And he just laid there with his butt sticking up in the air.
04:39Three days before the game, the media shifted its focus once more from McMahon's tail.
04:45This time, however, it was no laughing matter.
04:48I got down to the hotel lobby, Thursday morning before the Super Bowl, about six o'clock to get the papers.
04:55And I see the police there with the dogs.
05:00What is this all about?
05:01And the officers, oh, nothing.
05:03It's just the death threats of the quarterback, the Bears.
05:07I got woken up on Thursday morning by some irate fan that was screaming and yelling at me saying that, you know, they're going to kill me if I leave the hotel because I just called his wife a slut or something.
05:19And I had no idea what he was talking about.
05:21I called the radio station and one of the night disc jockeys said,
05:25Since he's been in town, all the women he met were sluts and all the men were idiots.
05:29And I said, who told you that? Where did you get that?
05:31He said, I heard him say it.
05:33So I went into the newsroom and when we went on the air at 10 o'clock, there was no verification that McMahon had said this during the morning show.
05:42Charlie, Jim McMahon, apparently on a radio interview this morning with WLS of the Chicago radio station, really ripped New Orleans.
05:49He ripped the people. He ripped the ladies.
05:51And Jim said, I didn't say that.
05:54If he said something, you know, he felt he would have confessed up to it.
05:58He said he didn't. So we believed him and later it turned out to be a false story.
06:03Other times the stories were true as McMahon said plenty to fuel his opponents.
06:09Well, I never feel for the other guy.
06:11You know, I got the crap beat out of me last week. I don't think he was feeling bad about me.
06:15Charles Martin, really cheap shot at Jim McMahon from the interception.
06:20When you're playing again.
06:21That right there cost the Bears a back-to-back run and maybe a dynasty.
06:27That slam right there.
06:28And not only do you want to hit him, I mean, you want to take him out of the game just for all those arrogant statements that he's made prior to the game.
06:36He was approved of it. The man was a nut cake, but nevertheless, he got the job done.
06:40He was going to do his own thing and he was going to win doing it.
06:43McMahon backed up his antics leadership on the field.
06:47This curiously American synthesis of weekday slapstick and Sunday success inspired the mavens of Madison Avenue to shower McMahon with $3 million a year in endorsements.
06:58He was not a particularly good role model. I remember parents said, you know, my son chews tobacco because of Jim McMahon.
07:04I'm sick of it. A guy sitting there this time, he wasn't about to say, I'm going to quit chewing tobacco because I know it's a bad image to present.
07:11Was it criminal? No. Was it irresponsible? Sure it was.
07:14He never woke up in the morning and said, what can I do today to please everybody or make other people feel good about the care?
07:22I knew what the hell I was doing. I always have. So, and I can live with it.
07:27You know, I'm not going to lose sleep over somebody thinking I'm an idiot.
07:39I was not the model kid, that's for sure.
07:42I remember the first day of kindergarten, I was in the principal's office day one.
07:46I was sticking thumbtacks on this kid's chair that was new to the neighborhood.
07:51I spent a lot of time there.
07:53He was always causing trouble.
07:55Instead of taking their nap time, he'd pick up blocks and throw them in a corner.
08:00So the teacher told me, he said, I think you better take him to a psychiatrist.
08:04And so I did.
08:06And he said, he's just bored with school. There's nothing wrong with Jim.
08:11Born August 21st, 1959 in blue collar Jersey City across the river from Manhattan.
08:17Jim was the second of six children to Roberta and James McMahon.
08:22When he was three, the family moved to San Jose.
08:25At six, a freak accident left him permanently impaired.
08:29We were playing Cowboy's Union and he was wearing a holster.
08:33And it was a shoelace wrapped around his leg to hold the holster on.
08:36I had a knot in the holster. I couldn't get it off.
08:39So I went and I got a fork and I was trying to get the knot out with the fork.
08:43And boom, the fork slipped and went, two prongs went back into my head.
08:49And it severed a piece of the retina.
08:51He pulled his hand down and I flipped his eye open and I almost got sick.
08:57All I saw was red blood.
08:59So I threw him in a car and rushed him to the emergency room.
09:02And the doctor that was there looked at it and he looked at me and he shook his head.
09:07He says, we're going to offer it right now.
09:10McMahon was taken to a hospital and had surgery to repair his right eye.
09:14He said your son would have his eyesight, but he wouldn't have computers.
09:19And he'd have to wear glasses.
09:22It always had to be dark because my eye doesn't dial it.
09:26And so since I was six, everybody thinks so. He wears them because he's cool.
09:31He wore the really thick glasses and a lot of times you'd have to tape on the glasses in the middle
09:34because they'd be broken and both front teeth are chipped.
09:37So if I could kid, that would be an easy pushover.
09:40When you go to first grade with that on, you're going to end up fighting a lot.
09:44I mean, the kids are brutal.
09:46I mean, I would have been.
09:47So I fought a lot growing up just because of that.
09:49If young Jim had it tough on the outside, life was no less a challenge in the McMahon household,
09:55where every dollar counted.
09:57I had to work two or three jobs just to make sure that we had enough money
10:01to put the clothes on our children and feed them and keep the roof over there.
10:05It was not easy.
10:07We never had the money to go on vacation.
10:09Our vacations were spent in the backyard playing ball.
10:13We were poor, but just like everybody else.
10:16We didn't know we were poor.
10:17So the only thing you do when you're poor is play ball every day.
10:20As a nine-year-old, Jimmy was starting center fielder.
10:22He'd hit from both sides of the plate.
10:24And he could throw the ball 30, 40 yards as a 10-year-old.
10:28My husband saw the talent in Jim and kind of pushed him into it.
10:33I used to say, maybe he doesn't like sports.
10:35Jim says, no, he's going to be a quarterback.
10:38While his father nurtured Jim's athletic talents,
10:41his mother held his behavior to an equally high standard,
10:45even if it meant a ban on sports.
10:47When he was 12, Jimmy gets busted for smoking.
10:51He just swiped my dad's cigarettes, and he had to sit out that year at baseball.
10:56Mom put the foot down.
10:58Jimmy was in a playoff game with the baseball team.
11:02He brought home a C.
11:03And I told my husband, I said, no, I said,
11:06I'm not going to let him play in the playoffs.
11:08Well, my husband, Jim, got really upset with me.
11:11We needed him on a team, and my wife wasn't going to let him play.
11:15I said, if you want a divorce over this, I said,
11:18it'll come to that because I don't want him playing.
11:21He has to learn that he has to keep his grades up.
11:24So Jim agreed, and we took him off the team.
11:27I knew at the time they were right, but when you're a kid,
11:31you don't want to listen to anybody.
11:33In 1975, after McMahon's sophomore year in high school,
11:37his family moved to rural Utah from urban San Jose.
11:41It was a big adjustment for Jim.
11:44He moved to Utah, which was primarily a more common environment,
11:48and Jim hadn't grown up in any of those type of environments before.
11:53He was just a very quiet person.
11:55He spent a lot of time by himself.
12:00McMahon's success in football and baseball at Roy High School
12:04landed him a scholarship to Brigham Young in 1977.
12:10Once on campus, however, the freewheeling quarterback was out of his element.
12:15It's kind of a cultural shock for people to come from a non-Mormon culture
12:19where having a cup of coffee or drinking
12:22or maybe being around people who smoke is no big deal.
12:26It's just part of your daily life.
12:27Back then, BYU had its honor code, which it has today,
12:31which asks athletes not to drink or to smoke or to have premarital sex.
12:38It did take you long to get to campus and hear who Jim McMahon was,
12:43and he was supposed to be this brash, cocky, Catholic guy
12:47who on occasion would sneak a can of beer.
12:52There's a lot of people in the Valley that don't like Jim McMahon
12:56because he sometimes would embarrass the school.
12:58I remember...
13:05Star Prophylactica.
13:08That didn't play well in Provo, let me tell you.
13:11He called into the Dean's office and slapped him on the hand and said,
13:16Jim, you know, you can't do that down here.
13:18And then he turned around and do it the very next weekend.
13:21You would have to say that he got special consideration.
13:27Some of the things that he did off the field would have been considered normal college life.
13:33But when you're in Rome, you have to do as the Romans do.
13:38And when you're in Provo, you have to do as the Mormons do.
13:40Knowing the structure at BYU was one thing. Accepting it was another.
13:49Jim McMahon's college career was marked by a vital mix of high moments on the field, high time,
13:58and a refined sense of social rebellion.
14:01There's this little alter-eagle thing going on with BYU fans.
14:08It's going to take a big, big amount of pride in seeing this team kick butt, score points, and break records.
14:14In the early 70s, they didn't have it.
14:18In the late 70s, they got it on the backs of quarterbacks like Mark Wilson, Gifford Nielsen.
14:25It was following two great Mormon quarterbacks who would say the right things.
14:30You know, they look like missionaries, Gifford and Mark.
14:35They were held on a pedestal in the community.
14:38Gifford Nielsen and Mark Wilson were two incredible quarterbacks.
14:49And that's the hollow.
14:50And Jim isn't the kind of person who models himself after anybody.
14:58It created some friction.
15:01Here it's like 95% Mormon.
15:03Mark Wilson was a...
15:06And it was tough.
15:07And it was hard for me sometimes because people didn't always accept me because I was dating the crazy Catholic quarterback.
15:16He became the starting quarterback.
15:21Mark Wilson had gotten hurt when Jim came into the game.
15:24He came in with so much confidence.
15:26Jim was like he'd been there for 10 years.
15:30Mark was very quiet.
15:32Jim was more outgoing.
15:33Some of the coaches wanted Jim.
15:35Some wanted Mark.
15:36And I'm sure that the feelings were probably the same way on the football team.
15:41I have a lot of respect for Mark Wilson.
15:43And he was a terrific quarterback.
15:46But competitiveness is what really separated Jim from Mark.
15:51Named all-conference, McMahon led BYU to a Holiday Bowl bid.
15:56But a knee injury before the regular season finale with UNLV led to a serious division between the fiery quarterback and his coach, LaBelle Edwards.
16:05The ball came up to me before the game and said, look, Mark's going to play tonight.
16:08He says, you know, give me a rest.
16:10I said, yeah, that's fine.
16:12So I said, what's going to happen in two weeks when we get back to San Diego?
16:15And he said, he says, well, you got us there, you're going to start.
16:18And the night before the game, he said that I wasn't starting.
16:22I told him, I said, I was leaving after that year.
16:24I said, I'm done.
16:25I'm not going to take this crap anymore.
16:26And I said, no, you're not going to leave.
16:28You're going to stick it out because this is the program for you.
16:31You're going to be a big star here.
16:33With McMahon coming off the bench, BYU suffered a loss to Navy in the first Holiday Bowl.
16:40He was hit with more frustration when off-season knee surgery forced him to redshirt the next year.
16:46Then in 1980, he finally became the starter.
16:50With two years of eligibility remaining, McMahon regained control of the Cougars and continued his march to a different drummer.
16:58Though they might not have always agreed with his lifestyle, his teammates accepted him as the quarterback and as the leader on the team.
17:05He was hurt almost all the time.
17:07And I think that probably inspired the team, too, because if Jim can play hurt, that's our excuses.
17:12Fearlessness was almost a crazy fearlessness.
17:15And they went to Hawaii to play against the University of Hawaii.
17:17And they were on, like, the 49th floor.
17:19Rather than walk down the hall, go to the elevator, and take the elevator down,
17:22he slipped out into the background of the deck and dropped from the 49th floor to the 48th floor into his buddy's room.
17:29You know, some people think that's crazy. That was Jim.
17:31McMahon's right.
17:35Touchdowns at 4,500 yards as the Cougars roared back to the Holiday Bowl.
17:41At halftime, a dejected BYU team trailed SMU 29-13.
17:49You could feel a lot of the players thinking to themselves, you know, if we could just score one more time and get out of here,
17:57that might be the best thing that could happen.
18:00There was no question that we were manhandling.
18:02But we came after him and, quite frankly, probably got a little overconfident.
18:07Trailing by 19 points in the fourth quarter, BYU faced a fourth and two near midfield.
18:15Lavelle just sent the punting unit on the field, and Jim refused to come off the field.
18:19And Lavelle calls a timeout. Jim comes off the field, told the offense, stay put.
18:24And I came over and started yelling, what are you guys giving up?
18:27This is bull****.
18:28The guy went upset to no end.
18:31And so it's just okay, go back in, we'll go for it.
18:34There's been a change of heart for the BYU coaching staff on fourth and one.
18:38They have elected not to pump the ball away with 8.39 left in the game.
18:42They've elected to go for the first down, and they have it on the pass to tight end, Clay Brown.
18:47His stand on that fourth down play let everybody know, hey, I'm not quitting.
18:53Don't anybody else give up on me.
18:57To the outside, and Phillips gets it in.
19:00So, Brigham Young narrows the gap.
19:02Whether it's too little or too late remains to be seen.
19:05There was never a time when you were in a game with Jim McMahon,
19:10when he was in the huddle that you didn't feel that we were going to win this thing.
19:14It just made you feel like that there was always a chance.
19:18Is it a touchdown?
19:22Yes!
19:23Oh, what a catch!
19:25Down 45-39, a blocked punt gave BYU the ball at the SMU 41 with 18 seconds left.
19:35After throwing two incompletions, McMahon sucked it up and pulled a play straight out of his sandlot days.
19:41I got in the huddle and said, look, you know, you guys give me a little time, and you guys get your asses down the end zone, and somebody catch this ball.
19:48Third and ten at the SMU 41-yard line, McMahon all the way back in his own 46, throwing for the end zone.
19:54I just kept looking up and kept running, kept looking up and kept running, kept knocking up and reaching back.
20:00Receivers are there, defenders are there, it is in the end zone.
20:04Ooh!
20:06Who has the most?
20:08Touchdown!
20:09Touchdown!
20:11Touchdown!
20:13Touchdown!
20:14Bring them down!
20:16McMahon's Hail Mary capped a 446-yard, 4-touchdown performance, with 203 of those yards coming after he took the reins from his coach.
20:27In his All-American senior year, he again led the nation in passing.
20:32Meanwhile, McMahon's equally active off-field activities were racking up points on the debit side.
20:38Following a second consecutive Holiday Bowl victory in 1981, he was presented with a laundry list of complaints.
20:45I was on probation pretty much my whole time there.
20:49I called into the Sanders office, and the guy was sitting there saying, I've got a list of people here that have all these allegations against you.
20:56I'd done some of them, sure, but there was a bunch of things I had no idea what they were talking about.
21:03I think in the end, there were some people at the university that were very concerned, and Jim loved to needle them.
21:10He loved to put it to them, and I think that they maybe overreacted, which is probably what you'd expect.
21:16The Sanders basically said, you're no longer here at the school, you're pretty much done.
21:20And it just happened to coincide with my eligibility right now.
21:23That may be some type of paranoia, you know, here's a Catholic kid in the middle of the Mormons, they're after me.
21:29Honestly, I can't recall a concerted effort to boot him out.
21:34I don't know if the fans have ever accepted him to this day.
21:38He wrote some rather disparaging things about his stay here in Provo.
21:43The line that I remember was the best thing about Provo was seeing it in his rear view mirror.
21:49Hey.
21:55Here's first round selection, Jim McMahon.
21:59Come back and bring me up.
22:01McMahon was due to arrive at Hallis Hall.
22:05Now a limousine came up, and somebody said, that must be a new quarterback.
22:09He stepped out of the limo with a can of bear in his hand.
22:13And that was the arrival of Jim McMahon with the Chicago Bears.
22:17Hallis opens up the negotiations, and he says, you don't have peripheral vision in that one eye.
22:23He says, I think we're entitled to a discount.
22:26He told me, for one, you're too short, you got a bad knee, you don't see very good.
22:31He says, maybe I'll just go to Canada.
22:33And I said, why the hell did you draft me?
22:35I think that McMahon reminded George Hallis of a young punk named George Hallis.
22:41The fifth overall selection wasn't the Bears' only rookie with an attitude in 1982.
22:47There was also a new head coach, Mike Ditka.
22:50I don't think there was a football team or a locker room or a field big enough to accommodate the personalities and egos of Mike Ditka and Jim McMahon.
23:01Jim McMahon.
23:02McMahon was the best quarterback for that team.
23:05And Iron Mike, sort of the antithesis of the punky QB.
23:11Even though Ditka and McMahon are really very similar, maybe sometimes got a little too close for both of them.
23:18Certainly there were some explosions on the sideline with me and Mike, and somebody would send a play in him.
23:23And then he'd say, you know, screw that, we're not running that, we're gonna run this, and it would work.
23:27One game, Mike and Jim were really winning at each other.
23:31Jim had changed the play, and Mike had said, don't change the play.
23:34And Jim goes, well, the defense was different, I had to change the play.
23:37He wanted to be in charge of everything, and at times it wasn't the right way, I felt.
23:41I never did try to control it, because Jim McMahon wouldn't have paid one bit of attention to what I said.
23:45If I'd have said, don't run, he would have ran.
23:48I said slide, he would have jumped over people.
23:51Didn't matter. There was no point getting into that.
23:53Jim was young, and he was a winner.
23:55Now, if they were an uneven team, and they lost a lot of, well, I don't think Ditka would have tolerated it.
23:59But I think Ditka was smart enough to know, get out of the way.
24:02I think they were really good for each other.
24:04I think they fueled each other's fire.
24:06In McMahon's first two seasons, the Bears failed to break .500, as Ditka's old school strategy relied on the legs of Walter Payton, rather than the arm of McMahon.
24:16After playing in the offense I played in, and then having to come to Chicago and deal with this offense, it wasn't very much fun.
24:25So I had to do something to amuse myself.
24:27He would run down field and headbutt people.
24:30You know, after great plays, just let's go have fun.
24:33Let's kick ass on the field and off the field.
24:36He just happened to be a real blue collar quarterback.
24:40His buddies were the grunt guys.
24:42He never separated himself, regardless of the notoriety he got.
24:47He liked hanging out with us, and he realized that for the team to be close, that he needed to hang out with us.
24:53I think that's why he played.
24:55It wasn't necessarily the championships or the records.
24:58It was because I'm most comfortable being with my boys, playing football, having fun, eating, drinking, running around, being crazy.
25:07Those guys would have did anything to protect Jim McMahon.
25:10He didn't play the game like a quarterback.
25:12He didn't have any respect for his body.
25:15He played the game with reckless abandon.
25:17I don't think if he ever took a safe slide like you see the quarterbacks today.
25:22Is that smart?
25:23No.
25:24Probably not.
25:25But does that win?
25:27You bet.
25:28And that's Jim McMahon.
25:29The inevitable happened against the Raiders in 1984.
25:33His kidney was lacerated by a hit and came back to the huddle and tried to call the next play.
25:41And the players knew he could hardly breathe, let alone talk.
25:45And I can't get it, I can't.
25:47You...
25:48I don't care how tough you are.
25:50If you're playing the Raiders any time in the 60s, 70s, 80s, you're gonna come away hurt.
26:02I breathe, I can't get my breath, and kind of wheezing, he's bent over a little bit.
26:06Guy can't stand up, so something's wrong, so we just sent him out.
26:09With their gutsy leader sideline, the Bears fell short of their first Super Bowl, shut
26:14out by the 49ers for the 1984 NFC Championship.
26:18After starting the first two games of the next season, McMahon was back on the bench with
26:22another injury.
26:23Trailing the Vikings 17-9, he shrugged off the pain and set the tone for the season.
26:29I'm looking at our guys' faces coming off the field, you know, they're beat.
26:34I mean, they...
26:35They were done.
26:36I'm saying, look, Mike, we're gonna lose this game, man.
26:39You better put me in, we're gonna lose.
26:41He's, I think, trying to get in the way of Mike Dipp there every way he can.
26:44Hey, Coach, what do you think?
26:46And finally, you know, he drove me nuts half-time in the third quarter and put him in.
26:50And evidently, Minnesota thought he couldn't throw the ball, too.
26:54Because they come with an all-out blitz.
26:57The very next play, he throws a touchdown to Dennis McKinnon.
27:13And then that very next series, he throws another touchdown to Dennis McKinnon.
27:16And we were on to win the game, of course.
27:18And I think for the first time, we as a team knew the Super Bowl is really, really a reality.
27:23They wanted to get three touchdowns in a game you didn't even start.
27:28In a game you didn't even get in until, like, the third quarter.
27:32They wanted to hear about Jim.
27:33They wanted to hear about Fridge, Walter, Samurai.
27:36I mean, we had a cast of characters that...
27:39It really hasn't been duplicated since.
27:41It seemed like every single starting player, with some of the scrubs,
27:45had either a radio show, a TV show, or a restaurant, or all three.
27:50You saw people without their helmets.
27:52You saw personalities.
27:54And you saw, you know, people singing and singing and having fun.
27:59We had a bunch of characters who had a lot of characters.
28:01That's what I've always defined our guys.
28:03And you don't really seldom get to see that until a team wins.
28:08The 85 Bears exploded a lot of myths about sports.
28:13That you have to be working together as a team, and you have to, you know, be quiet,
28:18and not say the wrong things, and not offend people, and not be too cocky or too arrogant.
28:24You would think that many different personalities there wasn't.
28:27There ain't no way this team's gonna mix.
28:29Believe me, the 45 guys we had didn't like each other.
28:32Realists.
28:33Until Sunday.
28:34And we played because we had to win, but...
28:36And whatever Jim said, we would do.
28:40McMahon steps up.
28:41Now he'll take himself.
28:42Got him up to the 15, to the 10.
28:43May go all the way to the 5.
28:45A speed over there.
28:46Touchdown!
28:47After the 15-1 Bears powered past the Giants and Rams in the playoffs, McMahon landed in
28:56New Orleans with the force of a hurricane.
28:58Jim McMahon took control of Super Bowl XX.
29:03Like, no player has ever taken control of a Super Bowl with the possible exception of Joan Amos.
29:09Everyone made sure that they talked to McMahon.
29:14They wanted to be there in case he said something really crazy.
29:18A lot of guys just refine what they do, or they do it behind closed doors.
29:21Well, McMahon didn't do that.
29:23He never did that.
29:24He was just going to be who he was, and if it meant going out on Bourbon Street,
29:27late at night, because that's what he was going to do.
29:29He was going to do it.
29:30We were having a really good time.
29:31We had some great, great restaurants.
29:33We had some laughs and drinks, and we'd always see some of the Patriots going in around 11 o'clock every night.
29:39We're out there.
29:40Oh, you guys, we're going to kick your ass.
29:42We'd just be hammered.
29:44As McMahon's nightly parade through the Big Easy approached game time,
29:48the question of headbands resurfaced, as the national media wondered whether its favorite rebel
29:54would defy Roselle's ban on forehead advertising.
29:57I got sent probably hundreds of different headbands.
30:02I ended up picking all charities, you know, like the Children's Miracle Network, the POW one went over great.
30:07Pluto, he's into outer space.
30:10Well, that only figures.
30:12He wore a headband that said Pluto on it.
30:15And people at the time thought, why is he wearing this headband with Pluto?
30:19Well, it was really a tribute to one of his friends, who was a BYU football player.
30:26My buddy had just gotten over his brain tumor, and so I wanted to let him know I was thinking about him.
30:31McMahon takes, takes the handoff, rolls touchdowns.
30:33With the Patriots focused on stopping Peyton, McMahon threw for 256 yards
30:41and was the first quarterback to run for two touchdowns in the Super Bowl.
30:45The Bears rolled 46-10.
30:48I don't care how great Walter Peyton was, I don't care how great our defense was.
31:01We don't win the Super Bowl without McMahon, period.
31:04Mmm.
31:09It was quite a to-do about the fact that Jim McMahon showed up with quite the punch.
31:20And here it was, they just won the Super Bowl, and he looked like he enjoyed himself an awful lot in the offseason.
31:26Jim was in so many commercials that players thought it was taken away from his preparation for the game on Sunday.
31:32Jim McMahon decided that he was going to advance his persona, and whether anybody liked it or not.
31:38In 85, it worked. But after 85, he was part of the demise of this team.
31:45In 1986, in an autobiography entitled McMahon, the quarterback fired a scattergun barrage at his parents,
31:52BYU's administration, his teammates, his coach, and Bears management.
31:57What? Why?
31:58When his autobiography came out, that was the beginning of the end for Jim McMahon as the Chicago Bears quarterback.
32:04When this came out, everybody was thinking, this is a dynasty, and here comes Jim McMahon's site.
32:11They don't have much faith in our laws.
32:14Jim McMahon was not accomplished enough or old enough to be putting out a biography.
32:22Michael McCaskey, I'm afraid he will ruin it, because I don't trust him a whole lot.
32:35I remember closing the book, looking around at him and going, man, it was nice playing with you.
32:39We've always tried to stay focused on the contribution that he can make to the football team and not let other things distract him.
32:45I didn't like Mike McCaskey. I still don't like him. Why?
32:49I don't know anybody that does. So, you know, I just said, you know, I think what had to be said.
32:56He criticized his own teammates. He said that Willie Galt needed to focus more on football unless I'm trying to be an actor.
33:04What quarterback is ever going to say that about his leading receiver?
33:07I understand what he said in the book. That never bothered me. But it bothers some other people in the organization, especially the owner.
33:13See, Jim didn't care what he said really about anybody. He just said it.
33:18With an off-injured McMahon on his way to playing just six games in 1986, the Bears signed Doug Flutie as insurance.
33:26The day we signed Flutie, McMahon showed up with a .22 jersey on and a little bitty shoulder pads and stuff.
33:32Jim saw Doug as another project for Mike. He came into a situation where no one really wanted him there but Mike.
33:40Mike Dicca loved me as a quarterback and as an athlete and as a person and all that. And Jim maybe felt a little threatened by that.
33:47But the other factor of it was he felt that his buddies at the time, Steve Fuller and Mike Tomczak, should have gotten that opportunity instead of me.
33:55I think Mike just needed somebody else for his circus, you know. He had me, the nut, he had Fridge, the fat guy, and he needed a midget. So he went and got flutie.
34:04That's where McMahon became very petty. That's where the Bears began to tear apart. And you have to ask yourself, why is somebody that petulant at that point in time?
34:13Jim, for whatever reason, was trying to make things a little difficult on me and that was his team. So those guys are going to follow his direction.
34:22He didn't talk to Doug. He polarized the offensive line. They didn't talk to Doug.
34:26It wasn't like we, you know, were mortal enemies. I was more backing my friends, Steve Fuller and Mike Tomczak.
34:33Because I figured they deserved a shot before the new kid that comes in.
34:37There was a tremendous air to my duck booty there.
34:39Mike Tomczak threw two touchdowns, ten interceptions that year, had a passer rating of 50.
34:46This is the guy you thought you'd have started, Jim? Stop.
34:53He was not a fan favorite. He was not a team favorite.
34:57We had a certain identity and a certain chemistry in the locker room.
35:00And when you bring an outsider in, he's not going to penetrate that circle.
35:03Well, by their defense, the Bears were 14-2 and won their third straight division title.
35:09But with Flutie at quarterback, Chicago suffered a stunning home playoff loss to Washington.
35:15Once we lost that ball game, the guys could say to Dick,
35:18See, I told you so. We lost. It's your fault. You shouldn't have been playing.
35:22You know, that wasn't the reason we lost the ball game.
35:24If Jim had taken Flutie under his wing and tutored him, he could have won another Super Bowl,
35:31but he wouldn't do it. And that's where he and I kind of parted ways.
35:35McMahon had missed 23 games due to injury over his first five seasons.
35:40The reckless, abandoned style was catching up with him.
35:43And as the injuries mounted him, the defensive tackled down on him.
35:49I think that what affects Dan Hampton, and maybe a few of the other guys too,
35:55is that if McMahon had been healthy more often, that they would have won more than they did.
36:01Dan Hampton was the Jim McMahon of the defense. He was loud and brash.
36:07And while some of those guys on the defensive line just did their work and were quiet about it,
36:12Dan always spoke out.
36:14Hampton was a guy who was always going out there on the field and playing when he was half-dead.
36:18And he questioned why McMahon wasn't doing the same.
36:22He did get hurt a lot.
36:25It's easy when you're 270 to be tough.
36:29Jim McMahon's 190.
36:34Geez.
36:36190 and you're a quarterback, you're going to get hurt a lot.
36:40Maybe he could have rehabbed better.
36:45I just know when he was out there, he was giving his all and doing whatever he could to win the game.
36:50There were some altercations verbally that took place.
36:52We sputtered a little bit on offense over the next couple of years and defense carried us.
36:57Maybe Dan was the spokesperson for the defense to finally say, you know, we're fed up with this.
37:02We had always gotten along pretty well, I thought, until 86 is when I hurt my shoulder.
37:11For him to then question me two years later, that was a little frustrating.
37:14Losing home playoff games again in 1987 and 88, the Bears' emerging dynasty was over before McMahon turned 30.
37:23I think if Jim could have stayed healthy, we probably would have won at least two to three more Super Bowls.
37:29He was a tragic figure, just like Chicago is in certain ways.
37:33He could get the Bears to that Super Bowl one time, and after that it was all might have been, could have been, should have, and didn't.
37:44Because Jim McMahon, this icon, this local legend, was to be no more a Chicago Bear.
37:51I didn't speak at all during training camp, but I figured something was going on, and I guess I was right.
37:57Now I don't have to deal with that anymore, and I'm very relieved.
38:00I feel sorry for the rest of the guys who got to put up with it.
38:03With San Diego, McMahon struggled in 1989, throwing as many interceptions as touchdown passes.
38:09Touchdown passes.
38:10Let's see what...
38:11Yeah, let's...
38:12That's...
38:13That's frustrating.
38:14It was probably one of the worst years of my professional career.
38:19You're off the field behavior.
38:22It's different scrutiny when you're losing.
38:25It might have flown in Chicago because they were a winning team, but it didn't work in San Diego.
38:31He allowed this image, this thing that had gotten him where he got, to consume him.
38:36I think it started to tear down the great things that he had done.
38:40I was happy when he left the team because he wasn't really fitting in.
38:45He was the amended version of Jim McMahon when he was in San Diego.
38:54I always admired him.
38:55I learned to play by watching him.
38:57I watched him drop.
38:59I watched him throw.
39:01I'm grateful in so many ways for Jim that he doesn't even probably realize.
39:06I think that Jim McMahon is the quintessential player whose mind was so adept at the game of football and his body just failed him.
39:14And we're not talking like the guy was 50 in his early 30s.
39:17He knew the game so well.
39:19He could read defenses so well.
39:21Subsequently, when other teams were caught and signed him, they were doing that to try to pitch that glimmer of the past.
39:28But the body always broke down.
39:30After one season in San Diego, McMahon bounced through the league.
39:35Eagles, Vikings, Cardinals, Browns, and Packers, mostly as a backup.
39:40Got a ring with the Packers in Cleveland.
39:42In Cleveland, McMahon had to be carried up the steps and set on the field.
39:46And I thought, how much mobility can a guy have?
39:49He can't walk up three steps.
39:51He threw for 317 yards and three touchdown passes, and they won.
39:55Everybody admired him for playing hurt.
39:57And he had a way of making everybody laugh and keeping everybody really loose.
40:02And because of that, he was an extremely popular guy.
40:05The Ten Commandments had been on like two nights before.
40:08And we're five minutes before kickoff.
40:10And everybody's sitting in front of the locker.
40:12There's full garb.
40:13You look over, and there's a big table in the middle of the room.
40:15And Mack's standing on top of it in a full Yule Brenner stance.
40:18And here comes Rich Cotite, and the coaches are coming out for their pregame address.
40:23And Mack looks down at Cotite, and he says,
40:25Come to me no more, Richie.
40:26But the day I see your face again, you will surely die.
40:29I don't think a Super Bowl ring was that important to him.
40:32He'd already had one.
40:33I don't think that money was a big factor.
40:37I think he just enjoyed the game.
40:39After 15 injury-plague campaigns, he went home to his wife Nancy and their four children.
40:53He said that when he was done playing football, he wanted to do nothing but hang around the house, play golf, travel with Nancy and the kids.
41:04That's exactly what he's doing.
41:06His family was important to him.
41:08His teammates were important to him.
41:10He had a goal at home with his children to discipline them and to bring them up the right way.
41:17They want to believe the image of him as this, you know, crazy, punky QB type person, because that's maybe the more exciting side of him.
41:26He does the laundry, he gets the mail, he sits at the desk and goes through his planner, and he just keeps to himself.
41:34And he's not as crazy as everyone thinks.
41:37I loved him like a brother.
41:39If he was a fan of yours or a supporter of yours, he'd be right there with you.
41:42As long as I live, I'm always going to have a special place in my heart for Jim.
41:46I think if there was anything about him, it was that he was honest.
41:50Some of us didn't always appreciate it and didn't like it, but he was consistently himself.
41:55We'd have three foursomes and he'd make us all play together.
41:58Twelve guys on a whole.
41:59And then people, Marshall would be like, you can't do that!
42:02And then he'd play with just shorts and no shirt, no shoes, no socks, no nothing. Just shorts.
42:07He was a jerk as a young man. He was a jerk as a pro football star.
42:11In a lot of ways, he's a jerk now.
42:13And if a jerk can have some charm, I guess he does.
42:18I don't think McMahon ever really wanted people to know him.
42:21He had this image that he wanted to perpetuate, and I think he did that successfully.
42:26He just was a guy who wanted to leave his mark both in terms of his accomplishments on the field and his antics off of it.
42:36Growing up, I wanted to be a professional athlete. I accomplished that.
42:40I didn't want to have a job. I accomplished that.
42:43Now I just want to have a good time.
42:45Just play golf, enjoy life, and watch my kids grow up.
42:50Hopefully, they'll do better than I did.
42:53Jim McMahon had the gift.
43:00Though he never threw more than 15 touchdown passes in a season, he won 69% of his NFL starts.
43:08Often, it was because he could make it up as he went along.
43:11He wasn't a fan of film sessions and even less of practices.
43:15What he wanted to do was play football, preferably.
43:19But if he had another game, well, easy rider was always game.
43:24For SportsCentury, I'm Chris Fowler.
43:27You talk about an overrated quarterback in the pro level.
43:34He threw 77 touchdown passes in his last two years at BYU.
43:39It took him seven, eight years to do that in the NFL.
43:44How about that he went 22 consecutive starts?
43:55He won 22 consecutive starts from 85 to like...
43:59No, 84 to 86.
44:0484 to 87 probably.
44:06And...
44:10He threw 25 touchdowns, 22 interceptions.
44:15He didn't do crap when he was not with the Bears.
44:19So, I don't know.
44:20I don't know.
44:21I don't know.
44:22I don't know.
44:23I don't know.
44:24I don't know.
44:25I don't know.
44:26I don't know.
44:27I don't know.
44:28I don't know.
44:29I don't know.
44:30I don't know.
44:31I don't know.
44:32I don't know.
44:33I don't know.
44:34I don't know.
44:35I don't know.
44:36I don't know.
44:37I don't know.
44:38I don't know.
44:39I don't know.
44:40I don't know.
44:41I don't know.
44:42I don't know.
44:43I don't know.
44:44I don't know.
44:45I don't know.
44:46I don't know.
44:47I don't know.
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